complain

I am going to miss living in Japan. There is so much to complain about here.

There’s a lot to complain about in Canada, the land of fat, stupid, knuckle-dragging doughnut eaters, but it’s just not the same.

Japan Election Special

Sangenjaya 1-chome
Monday, April 18
Around 5pm

It is election time. If you live in Japan, you know what that means: vans with loud speakers
Quiet side street
Van with candidate, noisy – as usual – destroying the silence
Me – walking. Annoyed. An opportunity to chat with the candidate
I do
With fingers in my ears I announce my distaste for the noise, in English, of course:
“No one is listening to you? You are too noisy! Go away. Its all a waste of time.”
They stop driving
They stop their announcements
I don’t stop
Though I continue to walk
After several seconds, with speakers still off, they drive past me a little more quickly than the usual slow crawl.
As the van drives past, the candidate, Candidate Oba, with head down, didn’t look at me, didn’t face me, says: “This is Japan”
He didn’t instil feelings of great leadership.
Thought it was (more than) a bit of a racist statement.
“This is Japan”?
Yeah, I know, and that’s the problem.

I am going to miss elections in Japan...

Japan’s economic ripple effect

It is only just starting. A ripple effect will be felt for the next couple of years. I am not negative, just realistic. it is not like the economy was moving at a healthy clip, plenty of orgs were teetering prior to the quake. Many countries are at the ready to absorb production, and Japanese companies will have to abide. If this quake had occurred 20 years ago, Japan would have had a better chance. Now in a globalized world where production, jobs and capital can move, China and others are in a very good position to eat Japan's lunch. Those (high paying) jobs are not coming back. In the middle, we have scored of unproductive white collar workers - who'd have been made redundant years ago in other G7 countries - who will be cut and join the ranks of other mid-career types who will struggle with no skills and no opportunity. Some have been cut. More are surely to follow. College grads have struggled for the past few years. The "factory" approach: high school -> uni -> job for life had been crumbling for the past several years. This, too will only unravel more resulting in masses of college grads with no job. What happens in other countries with high youth unemployment? At the lower end, I was shocked to learn about so many import workers - not "entertainment" visas but "guest" workers from China who worked on farms and who abandoned the country after the quake. Imported health care workers from Indonesia and Philippines have backed out, too. (always amazes me - a country with a labour shortage and at the same time a country that uses only half of its labour force). They may be back. But for now, all this puts a strain on farming and health care. Is the country bright enough to reallocate the unemployed students and salary men to farm work and health care? No.
People's lives have been turned upside down. This will never show up in government statistics.

Can you see any similarity?

.
One is highly talented and much beloved and the other is a politician.
On the top, Martin Short's character Ed Grimly. On the bottom, Yujiro, some poor schlep with bad hair. He's an actor, too. He is pretending to care. He is pretending that he will do something to make your life better. Yes, he's a politician in a campaign.



Change for Tokyo? He's a Japanese politician. Nothing's going to change. Not for the better, anyway. "You are being lied to, I must say!"

a tipping point?

“The only time you can get things done is in moments of genuine crisis and catastrophes -- there’s a small opportunity to do an extraordinary amount,” Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point,” who writes for New Yorker magazine, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Japan -- a country whose politics were in deadlock and sluggish for many, many years -- I hope they can seize this moment and accomplish a lot.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-30/japan-urged-to-seize-this-moment-or-risk-another-lost-decade.html

How come gladwell shows up everywhere?
i agree with his statements, but, there will be no tipping point in japan.
there is no leadership and no on really cares. coastal communities in the north west were impacted. some factories have been affected.
the only catalyst: a bunch of soccer players shouting "gambatte nippon" on television and an endless stream of j-pop clones doing benefit concerts.
the wealth (and wealthy) of this country is unaffected. it didnt hit kanto, kansai or aichi, just some farmers and fishermen.
the event is equivalent to hurricane katrina (new orleans) and three-mile island. were there "tipping points" as a result of either of these incidents? different country, different culture i realize.

Japan is an aging salaryman - a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker who's now being treated for lung cancer. the tohoku quake is just an added case of appendicitis.

Every day and every yen spent away from truly addressing the real issues is another day that korea, china, taiwan, singapore, US, Brazil, India, Germany eat Japan's lunch just a little more.

kan and gladwell can hope all they want.